


A Red Stream

by deadendtracks (amonitrate)



Series: the possibility was a blade [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Minor Injuries, Pre-Season/Series 05, Season/Series 05, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 15:03:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20490812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/deadendtracks
Summary: A brief holiday from Parliament, a conversation with Johnny Dogs.Relatively minor spoilers for the new season.





	A Red Stream

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Peaky Blinders Emergency Response Challenge, episode 1.

“You’ve got people for this kind of thing now, don’t you, Tom?”

Johnny leaned against the stall, wiped his brow with a handkerchief as Dangerous let out a snort like maybe she agreed. It’d been a broiler of a summer, but Tommy hadn’t seen much of it, stuck in smoggy London, stuck in his head in London. But it was a bank holiday so he was home in Warwickshire for a stretch, on furlough to the family. 

“Grooms, or… what the fuck do you call them, anyhow?”

“On holiday, is what I call them.” Tommy leaned over the horse’s bent leg, digging out the muck from one hoof with a pick. 

“And it couldn’t wait till they got back?”

“No, it couldn’t wait.” Dangerous shifted a little, her tail swishing at his back. He lifted his head, turned his full attention to her. “Stand, girl.”

“When I called at the house Lizzie said you’d just got in from London an hour ago. She said you’re to have a picnic this afternoon, you and the kids.”

“Yeah.” Tommy set aside the pick and started in with the curved knife, clearing away the dead sole. 

“You wearing your fine suit to that, too, then?”

Tommy paused, setting his jaw. “Did you come here to drive me mad with questions or did you have a point?”

Johnny grinned. “Next time I need a farrier I’ll give you a call. Save me a bill.”

“You do that.” The hooves weren’t in the worst shape he’d seen, but the stablehands had been lax and they were overgrown and uneven. She was difficult these days, Dangerous, or so they’d told him. Walking the stall, prone to biting. They’d got her a goat as a stallmate but she’d driven it out. 

She was mild as milk with him today, though. 

“Your boy’s starting school soon, yeah?”

Jesus Christ. What was this, a fucking interrogation? “Yes,” he said, bending over the hoof again, scraping away to get at the white. “In September.”

“Fucking nuns,” Johnny said, agreeably. “With their rulers and fucking--”

The knife slipped.

“He’s not--” Dangerous shied away from him and he dropped her leg as he straightened up. “I won’t have Charlie in a place like that."

Johnny was frowning. “Tommy--”

“I won’t have it,” he said. “Do you hear me? He’ll have proper teachers.”

“Okay, Tom.” Johnny wouldn’t stop fucking staring. 

“What is it you wanted?”

Dangerous was pawing at the floor of the stall, pulling against the rope. She’d been a race horse, she wasn’t taking the shift to family pet well. She wanted out of this place, away from the gloom of the stall, these walls around her, wanted to gallop in the pasture, see how fast she could run. 

“Just some conversation. To catch up. Tommy--”

“Catch up with what?”

Johnny took a step toward him, handkerchief held out like a flag of surrender. “Tom, you’re bleeding.”

He looked down at his hand. Blood dripped from his fingers to the dusty floor of the stall, running from a gaping slice in the flesh between his thumb and first finger. 

“Tommy, fuck, sit down.” His wrist was in Johnny’s hand, the cloth pressed against the wound. “Didn’t you feel that?”

There was a stool nearby. Johnny made him sit, fussing over him like a field medic. The handkerchief was already soaked through. 

“You’re gonna need stitches.” 

He shook his head. 

“Hold this, yeah?” Johnny took the knife from him and his uninjured hand was pressed into service. Then fingers were at his throat and Tommy reared back, nearly falling off the stool. Johnny backed away a step, his hands up. “Just trying to get that fucking tie off you, you’re white as a fucking sheet.”

Tommy swallowed and reached up. Fumbled to loosen his tie one-handed. 

“Tommy?” The new voice broke through the static in his head and he jerked to his feet again. Lizzie was in the stable doorway, in a light green dress and a straw hat ringed with fresh roses. “Jesus, Tom, tell me you didn’t get mud all over that bloody suit, Ruby and Charlie are getting hungry and we--”

She stopped and stared at him and as if it had been waiting for her the wound in his hand finally began to throb.

“Fuck,” she said.

“You got bandages and iodine at the house?” Johnny asked. “He nearly passed out on me.”

“I didn’t fucking--” But his vision was going around the edges, like gas rolling over the fields towards him, like the dirty smog and--

he was on the stool again, his head between his knees.

“I haven’t got a good look at it but I don’t think it’s bad. Bleeding plenty, sure.” Johnny was saying, over his head. Johnny’s hands gripped his shoulders, keeping him upright. 

Lizzie had his hand cradled in hers, prying away the cloth. Her sigh fell heavy around his feet, like she’d dropped it and was waiting for him to pick it up for her. He didn’t raise his head. Wasn’t sure he could without being sick. 

It wasn’t the blood, he’d seen more blood than this on a quiet day during the war. It wasn’t the pain, though the wound was burning now over top the throb. He’d lost track of when he’d last ate, no time for breakfast before he’d caught the train from London. Maybe that was it, though missed meals weren’t uncommon to him, either. Hunger was one of the natural reflexes he’d found deserted him somewhere in France. 

Maybe it was the fucking morphine.

“It’s deep,” she said. “You’ll need a doctor or it’ll get infected.” She dropped his hand and stood over him. “I’ll go make the call.”

“You want him up at the house?” Johnny asked.

“When he can walk, yeah. Don’t let him fucking drink anything that isn’t water before the doctor can see him.”

“Teddy bear’s fucking picnic,” Tommy muttered to the floor.

“Not anymore,” Lizzie said, and then she was gone.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Horses" by Patti Smith.
> 
> May possibly continue this and write more about Tommy and Dangerous, but for now it's a one shot.


End file.
